From: "Virginia DeMarce" <virginiademarce@yahoo.com>

If you are only going to read one book on the history of the 17th century as background for the 1632-verse, I recommend this one.

Geoffrey Parker, Europe in Crisis, 1598-1648 (Blackwell Classic Histories of Europe)
Paperback: 326 pages
Publisher: Blackwell Publishers; ISBN: 0631220283; 2nd edition (2001)

From: Virginia DeMarce

This is the Blackwell's series companion volume to Parker on the 17th century:

Andrew Pettegree, Europe in the Sixteenth Century (Blackwell History of Europe)
Hardcover: ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.85 x 8.66 x 6.42
Publisher: Blackwell Publishers; ISBN: 063120704X; (March 2002)

Editorial Reviews
Book Description
This engaging narrative history introduces readers to the central features and main developments of sixteenth-century Europe. The author's account of the major events of the age - political and religious conflicts, statebuilding, and exploration - creates a vivid sense of how it would have been to live in this tumultuous century. Events are seen within the context of the cultural, physical and intellectual environment at the time, and considered from the point of view of both Europe's elites and the broader spectrum of peoples. In tracing them, the author also provides an up-to-date synthesis of recent scholarly research written from many different approaches, and covering the whole European continent.

The book is written specifically for students coming to the study of this topic for the first time and assumes no prior knowledge of the period covered. It is particularly suitable for use on survey courses, since the fifteen chapters are designed to correspond to a fifteen-week semester course. — This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author
Andrew Pettegree is Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrew's and Director of the St Andrew's Reformation Studies Institute. He has published widely on sixteenth-century history, the English and European Reformations, and the history of the Book, including most recently a survey of The Reformation World (2000). — This text refers to the Hardcover edition.